Macca's Lash Up 2: Lash Harder

[Firebottle]

It's your wall of reflective equipment on the right hand side Martin

You could try hanging a blanket over it to see if there is any difference ...

[Macca]

That had crossed my mind Alan. Thing is there is a wall of reflective equipment on the other side too. Will have to experiment I suppose. Or move the speakers back in a bit.

[jandl100]

Re: "holographic imaging"

As ever, I seem to go my own way!

I think it has very little to do with deep bass.
It's about the resolution of fine detail in the mids, mostly, and a nicely dead room which doesn't blur things, imo.

Sure you can get big & blousy sound from a hefty whoomy wallop down below in a large echoey space, but that's not what I call imaging.
Imaging is about seeing the guitar player just there in the room. With the piano back left of him. It's about hearing the subtle decay of reverb in the recording venue surrounding, and separate from, the musicians.
I think it has amazingly little to do with deep bass.

Imaging happens mostly between the speakers - if they are 6 feet apart and you listen from 20 feet away, it has very little space to happen in and is not going to convince, imho. You need an equilateral triangle setup, or thereabouts - the wider the better, really, providing your system manages decent centre-fill.

And, no, I don't think it can only be captured by omni speakers because I happen to have some - I've heard amazing imaging from normal cone-in-a-box speakers. Perhaps the best ever were a pair of small Harbeths in that regard. Truly holographic. Amazing. ... and no deep bass at all!

[User211]

I actually agree.

Tube preamps can help in spades with flat imaging. A tube preamp can work wonders over a passive in this regard. A good tube pre can literally invent a whole new soundstage over a passive, adding depth and space in abundance. That ARC LS26 you hated was a massive candidate for doing precisely that with my M&Ds.

The craziest imaging I have ever witnessed in my entire life was from an all tube Western Electric/GIP system at Munich. That threw images that flew right past your head like a laser guided weapon. Insane. One of those audio moments of pure joy, shared with the chap I was with in the form of exchanged smiles of pure glee and utter astonishment! Just no need for words... though plenty were exchanged afterwards

[Macca]

Well, I can't physically get the speakers any further apart and an equilateral triangle with the listening pos. isn't possible either so that's that knackered then

[pgarrish]

Re: "holographic imaging"

As ever, I seem to go my own way!

I think it has very little to do with deep bass.
It's about the resolution of fine detail in the mids, mostly, and a nicely dead room which doesn't blur things, imo.

Sure you can get big & blousy sound from a hefty whoomy wallop down below in a large echoey space, but that's not what I call imaging.
Imaging is about seeing the guitar player just there in the room. With the piano back left of him. It's about hearing the subtle decay of reverb in the recording venue surrounding, and separate from, the musicians.
I think it has amazingly little to do with deep bass.

Imaging happens mostly between the speakers - if they are 6 feet apart and you listen from 20 feet away, it has very little space to happen in and is not going to convince, imho. You need an equilateral triangle setup, or thereabouts - the wider the better, really, providing your system manages decent centre-fill.

And, no, I don't think it can only be captured by omni speakers because I happen to have some - I've heard amazing imaging from normal cone-in-a-box speakers. Perhaps the best ever were a pair of small Harbeths in that regard. Truly holographic. Amazing. ... and no deep bass at all!

I dont think it has much to do with bass either, or expense. My old system of Rotel 965CD, rotel 930AX amp and JPW sonatas could play orchestral music where you could point at the instruments with your eyes closed, including how far away they were. My current system is definitely better at most things, but it doesn't do that - I suspect that trick has much more to do with the room and speaker positioning

[Macca]

I dont think it has much to do with bass either, or expense. My old system of Rotel 965CD, rotel 930AX amp and JPW sonatas could play orchestral music where you could point at the instruments with your eyes closed, including how far away they were. My current system is definitely better at most things, but it doesn't do that - I suspect that trick has much more to do with the room and speaker positioning

I think it depends on what degree of 'holographic imaging' we are talking about. It is a sliding scale. Whilst I agree you can get to an impressive level without the deep bass cues, I'm persuaded by the idea that having them present adds to the illusion.

[Macca]

I've been attempting a rebuild of the home cinema system which has been broken for a long time. All I want to do is to get the sound from the cable box into an amp and out through a set of speakers. How hard can it be?

It has been broken for so long I can't actually recall what the problem was. Anyway, unlike Alan Partridge I am not attempting to connect some rear speakers a propos achieving surround sound. I just want the telly to make sound out of the speakers. Sounds simple enough but there are complications. Firstly the TV has analogue outputs but they don't work, in fact they have never worked. It has two HDMI inputs, they used to work but don't any more.

Yes, getting a new telly would be simpler but I blew the cash for that buying the Krell.

To make matters worse the cable box only outputs USB, optical and SCART. I have an optical cable but the connector does not fit the receptacle on the cable box. You would think these things would be standard but no, that would make life too easy. No USB input on the amplifier, nor will it take SCART.

I recalled my previous solution was to connect via scart to a VCR then use the analogue outs on the VCR to connect to the amplifier. So let's try that. I also want to run the signal through the graphic equaliser, just for fun you understand, so will hook up the VCR into the graphic, then out to the amplifier.

Back of the cable box, one scart going to telly, the other going to the VCR



Back of the VCR. It's dusty behind there, not Springfield, the other dusty.




And hook up to the amp with these natty orange interconnects:




Does it work? Does it bugger. After swapping all the RCA phono cables out with still no joy I remembered that the reason this lash up failed before was one of the SCART leads went duff. Don't have a spare so will have to nip round to Maplin and buy another SCART. Hopefully they still sell them. What a pain in the ass.

[rigger67]

I HAVE A SOLUTION !!



Buy a scart cable with two right and left RCA leads on it.

Failing that, if you can't find one PM me your address and I'll send you one - I've got one and don't use it anymore

[rigger67]